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2023
A Soldier is on a foot patrol during an advise-and-
assistance mission in a Middle Eastern nation. The
trail ahead explodes in a brown blast of dirt and
machine-gun fire opens up. He drops to the ground
and looks through the S.M .A .R .T. sight on his rifle.
Ahead is a wall of brown dust, but his sight overlays
blue boxes showing the locations of the four allied
soldiers in front of him on the trail. He doesn’t need
the red arrow on the left edge of the screen to tell
him which side the machine-gun fire is coming from.
On orders from his sergeant, the Soldier takes a posi-
tion up the hill to lay down support fire. He counts
five white boxes in his viewer, likely enemy locations,
based on imagery analysis and acoustic signature
of the enemy weapons. The boxes quickly turn yel-
low as the data confidence increases. He knows not
to worry about all of the targets and focuses on the
one flashing box. That’s his priority target as his rifle
coordinates with the rest of the squad to distribute
targets in the most efficient way. Suddenly, Sparky,
the squad’s mechanical pack dog, runs over and drops
a stack of fresh magazines on the ground. The Soldier
looks at the counter on the side of his rifle; he hadn’t
noticed how low on ammo he was.
THE FUTURE
BATTLEFIELD
Science fiction becomes science fact.
Image by Colin Anderson/
GettyImages
66 Army AL&T Magazine
July-September 2018